The influence of grafting process on the optical, geometrical, and structural parameters of nylon-6 fibers

Mach-Zehnder interferometer technique is utilized to study the impact of grafting of the nylon-6 fibers with poly (methyl methacrylate) (PMMA) polymer on the optical, geometrical, and structural properties. He-Ne laser diffraction technique is applied to study the changes in the fiber thickness of two samples (nylon-6 blank and nylon-6 grafted with PMMA) at different positions along the fiber length. The geometrical parameters are investigated by determining the cross-sectional shape of the two samples. The results of the interferometric and the diffraction techniques show that there is no variation in the thickness of nylon-6 fiber but variations in the thickness of the grafted nylon-6 fiber are obvious. The optical and physical properties along the axis of these fibers are characterized by measuring their refractive indices, birefringence, polarizability per unit volume, dielectric constant, surface reflectivity and the refractive index profile. The results show that PMMA polymer changed the optical, geometrical, and structural properties of the nylon-6 blank fiber. Microinterferograms are given for illustrations.